Alien

1979’s “Alien”, directed by Ridley Scott.

Starring Sigourney Weaver, Ian Holm, Tom Skerrit, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, and Yaphet Kotto.

Winner of an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects (H.R. Giger, Carlo Rambaldi, Brian Johnson, Nick Allder, Dennis Ayling).
Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction (Michael Seymour, Leslie Dilley, Roger Christian, Ian Whittaker)

What is it about?

Deep in space, a crew of 7 wakes up from their cryo sleep. They are some kind of industrial miners, towing tons of mineral ore on the ship, Nostromo. They are lead by their captain (Tom Skerrit), with a science officer (Ian Holm), executive officer (Hurt), a warrant officer (Sigourney Weaver), navigator (Cartwright), and engineers (Stanton and Kotto). They are awakened by a beacon from a nearby planet’s moon (LV-426), and under company orders, go down to investigate. Once landing, some members of the crew explore the alien landscape. What they bring back with them is life threatening, and once they realize just how much, things get intense. The crew’s predicament is compounded by their employer, who may have intentions that are not conducive to ideal collective bargaining agreements.

Why is it worth seeing?

Alien is the genesis of one of the more interesting film franchises in Hollywood history. In some way, all of the films are about dealing with an awful alien race that lives to do 2 things: kill everything else that lives, and breed, (which involves killing). Here, in part 1, we explore this race through one of the more pure horror tropes ever expressed.

Based off of the science fiction comics by Dan O’ Bannon, he wrote the screenplay for “Alien”, which flashy director Ridley Scott took on. For his second film, Scott has said that he was going for something that was between “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “2001: A Space Odyssey”. As for O’Bannon, after he made “Dark Star”, and wondered what a horror movie set in space would feel like with an actual scary monster (instead of a beach ball). They made the decision to base the movie’s pivotal creature off of the surreal sexual/mechanical (read: Freudian) works of Dutch surrealist H.R. Giger (who himself was inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s works). As a result, all of this movie’s background is either tangled metal, terrible phallic alien head, or both.

One of the horrors of the Alien creature isn’t just how it looks- it’s how plausible an organism it is. I won’t get into the gory details, as half the fun of “Alien” is going along for the terrible ride. More philosophical critics in the past have likened the grisly series to an allegory into male rape, body horror, misunderstandings about human child birth, and mother nature unleashing all of her Gaia energy back at us. That’s fine. My Marxist leanings focus on the class warfare depicted on the corporate ship. The employees of the corporation kvetch about the unplanned extracurricular activities that the company wants them to do, before being told that they won’t be paid their bonuses unless they follow orders, as well as certain part of the mission being expendable- are plenty enough for my intellectual musings. But that’s not really what the movie’s about. It’s survival of the fittest- with a strobe light and a ton of goo.

Here, we get to see a flick that’s perfect for it’s pacing. Scott takes his time, as we get to meet the crew and their ship, and slowly are absorbed into the viscus of pure aggression, before we end up gasping for breath. Although we faintly know of it’s greatness, we don’t realize how much until it’s over.

The cast is flawless, perfectly capturing the mundane grind of interstellar employment hell, and then the terror of dealing with something they don’t understand, and aren’t prepared to fight. From Holm’s chilliness as the detached scientist, to Skerrit’s toned down captain following orders, to Weaver’s initially muted but undeniable pluckiness, we sympathize with these blue collar humans who have been abandoned both by mother nature in the depths of space, and the company they work for.

Those that claim the effects at times look like they are decades old will be on to something- the wrong thing. Same for the horror tropes of jumping cat scares or of a pair separating to go hunting alone. “Alien” is the film that inspired countless comic books, video games, and at least 7 more films (such as the equally formidable, "Aliens") featuring the baddie. More importantly, it introduced a new sub genre, that of science fiction horror, catapulted Weaver to stardom, and hasn’t even really had much competition from other like-minded films (certainly not "Life"). Alien is a classic film, the perfect start to a classic series.

Rating:

5/5

Trailer: Click Here.